The present invention relates to the field of protective garments, and more particularly to garments to protect athletes competing in contact sports, such as lacrosse, football, hockey and motocross. While the present invention is primarily directed to protective athletic garments, however, it is also applicable to garments used in any activity involving potential high-impact bodily contact where there is a need provide protection without unduly restricting mobility.
Protective garments and equipment designed for use in contact sports typically rely on two modes of dissipating impact forces: padding and shielding. Padding dissipates the force through elastic deformation of the padding material, while shielding deflects a portion of the force away from the body. Optimally, padding and shielding are used in combination, with padding underlying shielding, so that undeflected forces transmitted through the shield can be absorbed by the padding beneath.
The major problem in designing effective athletic gear is the need to balance protection versus mobility. Even within the same sport, different degrees and types of protection and mobility are often demanded for different position players. Shoulder protectors suitable for a football lineman, for example, would be much too confining for a quarterback or wide receiver, while a quarterback's lighter padding would be ineffective for blocking on the line.
One way to provide both mobility and protection is to segment or articulate the padding and/or shielding, leaving interstices and/or joints within which flexing and bending can take place. Segmentation and/or articulation of both padding and shielding is needed to provide mobility where both modes of protection are being deployed in conjunction with one another. But, since segmentation and articulation introduce additional degrees of freedom of movement to padding and shielding beyond that associated with their protective functions, it's important that the mobility dynamics of the padding and shielding not work at cross purposes to their protective dynamics.
For example, a simplistic approach to segmenting an elbow protector would be to split it above and below the joint. But, while facilitating elbow movement, such segmentation would also leave the most sensitive outer part of the elbow exposed every time the elbow was bent.
Another important consideration in designing articulated body protection is the interaction between the padding and the shielding. For example, foam padding underlying a one-piece shield panel will compress downward to dissipate a downward force applied to the panel. But the same padding beneath a two-piece panel may be subject to sideward pressure which limits its downward compression and reduces force dissipation.
The prior art in this field includes garments in which segmented padding is inserted into pockets or openings in the garment. Examples of these garments are disclosed by Mattila, U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,407, Ketcham et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,706, Valtakari, U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,473, and Davis, U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2007/0199129. While pocket-type padding has the advantage of versatility, the padding adds to the bulk of the garment and impedes mobility.
Several prior art patents/applications teach the use of segmented protective pads which are integrated within the fabric of the garment. Examples of such integrated segmented padding designs appear in Fortier et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,559, Stewart et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,082, and Lamson et al., U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0044319. A joint protector with articulated padding is disclosed by Williams, U.S. Pat. No. 6,058,503, in which the resilient members conform to the contours of the protected joint.
The combination of segmented padding with overlying non-articulated panels is taught by Donzis, U.S. Pat. No. 4,453,271, wherein the panels conform to body contours, as do the pocket-insert panels disclosed by Valtakari and Davis. An upper body protector comprising inflatable air cells in combination with rigid non-articulated plastic epaulets is taught by Maynard, U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,703.
The present invention improves upon the prior art by providing a protective garment with a combination of latticed resilient padding covering vulnerable body areas, such as chest, arms and back, plus articulated, perforated rigid shield panels over joints areas, such as shoulders and elbows. Synergistic dynamic interaction of padding and shielding is achieved by converting impact forces to torques within a series of articulated shield panels and spreading out the forces transmitted to the underlying padding both over area and time.